1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to bus communications, and specifically to a controller area network (CAN) bus communications protocol that enables communications among controlling software components and processor-controlled peripheral devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional wireless base stations are required to control peripheral devices such as amplifier sets to amplify RF signals output from the transceiver and switching sets used to assure proper routing of RF signals from the antenna, through software applications commonly referred to as controlling software components. The controlling software components typically control the peripheral devices by broadcasting control messages to multiple peripheral devices over a multi-drop bus, or by discretely communicating with a single peripheral device using a hardware addressing messaging scheme over a point-to-point bus.
The above-mentioned bus configurations, however, have certain associated limitations. A multi-drop bus such as a CAN bus provides a low cost integrated solution for networking controlling software applications or components with peripheral devices. However, a multi-drop CAN bus, while it enables a controlling software component to communicate with several peripheral devices via a broadcast messaging scheme, does not enable the software component to communicate with only a specific one or ones of the peripheral devices via a hardware address messaging scheme. In addition, the controlling software component must be reconfigured each time a peripheral device is removed or added to the bus, thereby increasing base station down time and maintenance costs.
On the other hand, a controlling software component that is tied to a peripheral device via a dedicated point-to-point bus can discretely address the peripheral device using hardware addressing messaging. However, dedicated point-to-point connections require a high degree of input/output processing and additional discrete control lines or connections at, for example, the base station backplane, and are therefore impractical to implement on a system wide basis due to cost and space considerations.
What is needed then is a system and methodology that enables controlling software components to discretely communicate with processor-controlled peripheral devices over one or more multi-drop busses.